School raising its standards (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

School raising its standards

7:00am Monday 6th August 2012 in News

STANDARDS are rising at a Kidderminster school, which has gone from satisfactory to good in four years, according to an Ofsted report.

St Ambrose Catholic Primary School was given the good rating for overall effectiveness, achievement of pupils and the quality of teaching. The behaviour and safety of pupils and its leadership and management were also rated good.

Two inspectors observed 18 lessons at the Leswell Street school in May, visiting each class twice The report said St Ambrose “is a good school, which has improved since its last inspection”, in 2008.

It added: “Inspectors found that pupils work hard and make good progress, reflecting the positive opinions which most parents, carers and pupils have of the school.

“It is not outstanding because there is still some variation in the school’s assessment procedures and in the quality of teaching and pupils are not always challenged sufficiently to improve their written work.”

It said attainment had been “broadly average” for a number of years “but standards are rising throughout the school”, especially in key stage two maths.

Teachers were also praised as good, while pupils were recognised for behaving well in lessons and around the school.

The report said to improve, the school needed to help pupils get the maximum benefit from their written work by building in adequate time for pupils to respond to the comments teachers made when marking their work and helping pupils to develop skills to become self-critical readers and editors of their own work .

It also had to be more rigorous in pointing out where pupils had made errors or where they could improve their work.

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